Case 8  Dispute over infringement of “short video” copyright

[Basic Information]

Case No.: (2017) Beijing 0108 Civil First Instance No. 51249

Plaintiff: Beijing Kuaishou Technology Co. Ltd.

Defendant: Guangzhou Huaduo Network Technology Co., Ltd.

[Case Brief]

A user of Kuaishou APP uploaded and posted the video titled “IQ that Nobody Has” (hereinafter referred to as “the video at issue”) on Kuaishou APP in April 2015. Beijing Kuaishou Technology Co. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Kuaishou”) believed that the video at issue was rich in artistic creativity and similar to the song-and-dance duet; it made humorous content with dialogues and action and had originality. According to agreements including Kuaishou Network Service Agreement and Intellectual Property Terms as well as authorization of the user, Kuaishou legally obtained the exclusive right of communication through information network of the video at issue around the world. In 2017, Guangzhou Huaduo Network Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Huaduo”) uploaded and posted the disputed short video on its “Budao Small Video” APP on the Android and iOS terminals. Kuaishou believed that the above act of Huaduo impaired its copyright of the video at issue, hence sued to the court, demanding Huaduo to compensate RMB 10,000 yuan for economic loss and corresponding reasonable expenditure. The court of first instance held that although the video at issue only lasted for 18 seconds, yet it told scenarios in the period, combined elements of dialogues and actions of two performers and showed the scene of the story through the lens shift, thus constituted a complete expression with originality. Combining the fact that the video at issue was posted on Kuaishou APP in the form of digital video, the video at issue was a work filmed on a certain medium, composed of a series of pictures with accompanying sounds and spread through the Internet, hence belonged to works created in a way similar to cinematography. Although the short duration may indeed limit the expressing space of authors, yet the limit of expressing space did not mean short videos had limited expression forms and belonged to products of the ideological category. On the contrary, one can also create an expression of content reflecting certain topic and with various elements of characters, scenes, dialogues and actions within over ten seconds. Huaduo, by releasing the video at issue on the “Budao Small Video” APP it operated without the permission of Kuaishou, impaired the right of communication through information network that Kuaishou enjoyed for the video at issue according to law, and shall bear the infringement liability of compensating for economic loss and others. Accordingly, the court of first instance made a judgment, ordering Huaduo to compensate RMB 10,000 yuan to Kuaishou for economic loss and corresponding reasonable expenditure. Neither party appealed after the judgment of first instance.

[Comments]

In recent years, short video has become one of the most popular Internet products due to its novel form, rich content and rapid spread, and cases involving relevant copyright disputes start to spring up. This case combined provisions of the Copyright Law on constitutive elements of works and types of works, fully demonstrated the controversial issues of whether short videos may constitute works and which type of works short videos may constitute, and finally found that the video at issue had originality and conformed to the constitutive elements of works created in a way similar to cinematography. This case was referred to by the media as the first case determining that short videos may constitute works, and its typical significance lied in that it determined that short videos may have copyrights and may constitute works created in a way similar to cinematography with the form of judgment for the first time. At a time when the short video industry is broadening its scale and behavior boundaries of relevant subjects urgently await clarification, this case responded promptly to the needs of the short video industry to strengthen intellectual property protection and clarify rules, and will play a guiding role that juridical protection should play for the development of the industry.

 photo from: tech.ifeng.com